One Language – Many Voices
Mon, 3-15-2010
Four short stories which are a part of the a-level exam in English were performed on the stage of the theatre house Pfalzbau in Ludwigshafen. These short stories are written by the popular English speaking authors Joseph Conrad, Somerset Maugham, Chinua Achebe and Salman Rushdie. All four stories stick to colonial or post-colonial issues. They deal with the consequences of British colonialism and the clash of cultures. The characters try to manage their lives in this environment. You can see foreign cultures, manners and landscapes. The performance was full of music and light effects which transferred the sometimes tense atmosphere.
In the beginning the stage is all green. Native people dance and walk around with staves. A woman carries a baby in her arms. A white man shoots the child. The native tones leave and British music begins.
This was the introduction for Joseph Conrad’s “An Outpost of Progress” which plays in the last decade of the 19th century. It is about the clash of cultures and the fear of going native. Two Belgian soldiers are stationed on an outpost in Belgian Congo. Kayerts, the chief, and Carlier, his assistant, suffer under the heat of the jungle. The native Makola, normally called Henry Price, and ten slaves work for them. They trade to get ivory. The workers do not work efficient and Makola sells them to a cost tribe for ivory. By and by the hierarchy between Kayerts and Carlier crumbles. Both men are unhealthy because of the weather. They get crazy because of desperation and fear and Kayerts shoots Carlier by accident. A bit later Makola announces the steam boat and Kayerts shoots himself.
In my opinion the use of light was very effective to support the atmosphere. Furthermore the change between native music, British music or animal sounds was very impressive. The performance was detailed and differed a bit from the book. Most remarkable was the suicide of Kayerts who shoots himself instead of hanging on the cross of the grave of the ancient station director. Makola acted like an intermediator between east and west. The presentation was very agile and the process of growing fear was depicted to chase. This kind of dealing with the topic was much more exciting then reading and deepened our knowledge about the story.
The Force of Circumstance
The second short story was `The Force of Circumstance`by W. Somerset Maugham, which was written in 1928. The story is about the fear of going native. Guy, a leader of an outpost in Borneo, which is in Malaysia, brings his young English wife, Doris, to his outpost. There their marriage fails. A Malay woman out of the village appears again and again in front of their veranda. Doris gets to know that Guy has lived together with that Malay woman for the last ten years and has three children with her. Doris cannot believe it.
Even though she knows that Guy loves her, she can’t accept in mind that her husband has had an affair with the Malay woman. Doris needs time and in the end she decides to leave Guy and to return back to England.
The story began with a leap in time with the first meeting of Doris and Guy. That beginning was very impressive, because, in my opinion, it was certain, that this marriage was bound to fail. The cooperation of light and of music has underlined the Doris’ situation. The tennis match, which alters the atmosphere and their relationship was very brief but it was sure that this match would change everything in Doris’ life, as Guy sais in the story: you have the balls on your side. Guy’s fear of going native ceased to exist a little bit, that was pity. But all in all I think the play was very well done and the actors did all they could do and that was very impressive for me.
Dead Men’s Path
After a little break the performance continued with Chinua Achebe’s “Dead Man’s Path”. It’s about the clash of cultures. Michael Obi was appointed headmaster of Ndume Central School in Nigeria in 1949. He and his wife Nancy, both young and enthusiastic, want to modernize the school and to teach western values. Nancy also wants that the school compound is a place of beauty. A little path over the compound connects the village shrine of the natives with their place of burial. The whole village depends on it. Their dead relatives depart by it and their ancestors visit them by it. Also it is the path of children coming in to be born. M. Obi closes the path and three days later the village priest comes to beg for reopening the path. Obi says it is against their regulations. The priest leaves and the next day Nancy’s dream gardens are destroyed. The same day the white Supervisor comes to visit the school. He writes about the tribal-war situation and the misguided zeal of the new headmaster.
In the beginning of this story there are workers who cut the curtain which represented the jungle in the two first stories which shows the change Nancy and Michael Obi bring to the school. Nancy walks around in an arrogant way with a feather duster or later a brush. This shows her perfectionism and her feeling of being something better. A difference to the text was the storm at night. Nancy and Michael saw their school compound getting devastated. This change brought more tension in the story. A teacher who worked in the garden was added as well.
Good Advice is Rarer then Rubies
The last short story which was performed was ‘Good Advice is Rarer Than Rubies’ by Salman Rushdie.
The story takes in the contemporary Pakistan and was first published in the 90’s in Salman Rushdie’s anthology ‘East, West’. Miss Rehana, the most beautiful woman, that blackleg Muhammad Ali has ever seen, waits like many other women do in front of British consulat in Bombay. But in antagonism to them she is neither veiled nor in escourt of a man. In a conversation Muhammad Ali experiences that Miss Rehana needs a visa to England, because there her future-husband-in-law, she hadn’t seen before because the engagement was arranged by her family, waits for her.
Ali offers her, like the other women, a fake passport- but otherwise he demands a lot of money. Overwhelmed of Miss Rehana’s beauty he wants to give her the passport for free.
She denies and goes to the awkward interrogation of the consulat’s employees who want to ascertain if the reasons are cordial for an English visa. Miss Rehana answers deliberatly wrong and prefers her life in Pakistan to an uncertain future in England.
The exertion of light and music was perfect and the stage setting has fit to that story even if there were only Indian foulards The actors have had a lot of fun to play their role and it was even more fascinating that they have danced.
All in all, the whole performance was full of colours and music. Two actresses and three actors slipped into many different roles and demonstrated numerous situations and conflicts with colonial or post-colonial background. In “Dead Man’s Path” the audience was directly involved in the play as students. The headmaster Michael Obi asked for some students’ names and wrote them on a board which was on the stage. The change over between the stories wasn’t that successful as the rest of the performance. We didn’t like the added parts which didn’t belong to any of the short stories.
As we said before, it was a successful performance and commendation for all people, who are interested in colonial and post colonial history of England and for all theatre-fans.
Adrienne Köhler und Florian Bausch, 13
Four short stories which are a part of the a-level exam in English were performed on the stage of the theatre house Pfalzbau in Ludwigshafen. These short stories are written by the popular English speaking authors Joseph Conrad, Somerset Maugham, Chinua Achebe and Salman Rushdie. All four stories stick to colonial or post-colonial issues. They deal with the consequences of British colonialism and the clash of cultures. The characters try to manage their lives in this environment. You can see foreign cultures, manners and landscapes. The performance was full of music and light effects which transferred the sometimes tense atmosphere.
In the beginning the stage is all green. Native people dance and walk around with staves. A woman carries a baby in her arms. A white man shoots the child. The native tones leave and British music begins.
This was the introduction for Joseph Conrad’s “An Outpost of Progress” which plays in the last decade of the 19th century. It is about the clash of cultures and the fear of going native. Two Belgian soldiers are stationed on an outpost in Belgian Congo. Kayerts, the chief, and Carlier, his assistant, suffer under the heat of the jungle. The native Makola, normally called Henry Price, and ten slaves work for them. They trade to get ivory. The workers do not work efficient and Makola sells them to a cost tribe for ivory. By and by the hierarchy between Kayerts and Carlier crumbles. Both men are unhealthy because of the weather. They get crazy because of desperation and fear and Kayerts shoots Carlier by accident. A bit later Makola announces the steam boat and Kayerts shoots himself.
In my opinion the use of light was very effective to support the atmosphere. Furthermore the change between native music, British music or animal sounds was very impressive. The performance was detailed and differed a bit from the book. Most remarkable was the suicide of Kayerts who shoots himself instead of hanging on the cross of the grave of the ancient station director. Makola acted like an intermediator between east and west. The presentation was very agile and the process of growing fear was depicted to chase. This kind of dealing with the topic was much more exciting then reading and deepened our knowledge about the story.
The Force of Circumstance
The second short story was `The Force of Circumstance`by W. Somerset Maugham, which was written in 1928. The story is about the fear of going native. Guy, a leader of an outpost in Borneo, which is in Malaysia, brings his young English wife, Doris, to his outpost. There their marriage fails. A Malay woman out of the village appears again and again in front of their veranda. Doris gets to know that Guy has lived together with that Malay woman for the last ten years and has three children with her. Doris cannot believe it.
Even though she knows that Guy loves her, she can’t accept in mind that her husband has had an affair with the Malay woman. Doris needs time and in the end she decides to leave Guy and to return back to England.
The story began with a leap in time with the first meeting of Doris and Guy. That beginning was very impressive, because, in my opinion, it was certain, that this marriage was bound to fail. The cooperation of light and of music has underlined the Doris’ situation. The tennis match, which alters the atmosphere and their relationship was very brief but it was sure that this match would change everything in Doris’ life, as Guy sais in the story: you have the balls on your side. Guy’s fear of going native ceased to exist a little bit, that was pity. But all in all I think the play was very well done and the actors did all they could do and that was very impressive for me.
Dead Men’s Path
After a little break the performance continued with Chinua Achebe’s “Dead Man’s Path”. It’s about the clash of cultures. Michael Obi was appointed headmaster of Ndume Central School in Nigeria in 1949. He and his wife Nancy, both young and enthusiastic, want to modernize the school and to teach western values. Nancy also wants that the school compound is a place of beauty. A little path over the compound connects the village shrine of the natives with their place of burial. The whole village depends on it. Their dead relatives depart by it and their ancestors visit them by it. Also it is the path of children coming in to be born. M. Obi closes the path and three days later the village priest comes to beg for reopening the path. Obi says it is against their regulations. The priest leaves and the next day Nancy’s dream gardens are destroyed. The same day the white Supervisor comes to visit the school. He writes about the tribal-war situation and the misguided zeal of the new headmaster.
In the beginning of this story there are workers who cut the curtain which represented the jungle in the two first stories which shows the change Nancy and Michael Obi bring to the school. Nancy walks around in an arrogant way with a feather duster or later a brush. This shows her perfectionism and her feeling of being something better. A difference to the text was the storm at night. Nancy and Michael saw their school compound getting devastated. This change brought more tension in the story. A teacher who worked in the garden was added as well.
Good Advice is Rarer then Rubies
The last short story which was performed was ‘Good Advice is Rarer Than Rubies’ by Salman Rushdie.
The story takes in the contemporary Pakistan and was first published in the 90’s in Salman Rushdie’s anthology ‘East, West’. Miss Rehana, the most beautiful woman, that blackleg Muhammad Ali has ever seen, waits like many other women do in front of British consulat in Bombay. But in antagonism to them she is neither veiled nor in escourt of a man. In a conversation Muhammad Ali experiences that Miss Rehana needs a visa to England, because there her future-husband-in-law, she hadn’t seen before because the engagement was arranged by her family, waits for her.
Ali offers her, like the other women, a fake passport- but otherwise he demands a lot of money. Overwhelmed of Miss Rehana’s beauty he wants to give her the passport for free.
She denies and goes to the awkward interrogation of the consulat’s employees who want to ascertain if the reasons are cordial for an English visa. Miss Rehana answers deliberatly wrong and prefers her life in Pakistan to an uncertain future in England.
The exertion of light and music was perfect and the stage setting has fit to that story even if there were only Indian foulards The actors have had a lot of fun to play their role and it was even more fascinating that they have danced.
All in all, the whole performance was full of colours and music. Two actresses and three actors slipped into many different roles and demonstrated numerous situations and conflicts with colonial or post-colonial background. In “Dead Man’s Path” the audience was directly involved in the play as students. The headmaster Michael Obi asked for some students’ names and wrote them on a board which was on the stage. The change over between the stories wasn’t that successful as the rest of the performance. We didn’t like the added parts which didn’t belong to any of the short stories.
As we said before, it was a successful performance and commendation for all people, who are interested in colonial and post colonial history of England and for all theatre-fans.
Adrienne Köhler und Florian Bausch, 13
